Along with recent advancement toward higher integration and lager capacity of large-scale integrated circuits (LSIs), the circuit line width required for semiconductor devices has become increasingly smaller. The photolithographic technique is used to form desired circuit patterns in semiconductor devices. In this photolithographic technique, pattern transfer is performed using a defined pattern called a photomask (a reticle). A charged particle beam drawing apparatus having fine resolution is used to produce highly accurate photomasks to be used for such pattern transfer.
For the charged particle beam drawing apparatus, drawing data is hierarchically divided into a chip level, a frame level, a block level, a cell level and a figure level. In the hierarchically-structured drawing data, a drawing condition (for example, a dose) for a particular figure is adjusted with attribute information (for example, attribute information for defining the dose) given in addition to graphic information on the particular figure. A conventional practice is to give the attribute information to only some of many figures. In recent years, however, a demand for higher resolution has increased the number of cases where attribute information is given to all the figures.
In the above-mentioned attribute giving method, the attribute information is included together with the graphic information in the graphic information file. For this reason, a change to attribute information on a particular figure, for example, requires the regeneration of the entirety of the graphic information file including both the graphic information and the attribute information, and accordingly makes the process efficiency worse. Furthermore, the placing of chips, which are the same in graphic information but different in attribute information, on a mask requires the same graphic information to be generated by duplication, which increases the data volume and worsens the process efficiency. Against these backgrounds, improvement to the process efficiency has been awaited.